questions as to its nature, but take it straight to God. In the case of a

questions as to its nature, but take it straight to God. In the case of a

1. Don't puzzle yourself with hard questions about the particular kind of sins committed.—Be satisfied that it is sin, and deal with it as such. There are sins unto death, and there are sins not unto death. Do not trouble yourself or others with questions on this point, which no man can answer. Remember that all unrighteousness is sin; and that it is simply with sin, as sin, as a breach of the perfect law of righteousness, that you have to do. It is not the nature or the measure of its punishment that you have to consider, but its own exceeding sinfulness.

2. Be concerned about a brother's welfare.—"Look not every man on his own things, but look also every man on the things of others," as said the apostle. If any of you see a brother sin, do not let him alone, as if it did not concern you. Do not say, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Desire the spiritual prosperity of all the saints. Seek, too, the salvation of the unsaved. They need your pity and your effort. Leave them not.

3. Don't trifle with sin.—Count no sin trivial, either in yourself or another. Do not dally with temptation. Do not extenuate guilt. Do not say, May I not keep my beloved sin a little longer? Part with it, or it will cost you dear. In what way it may do so I know not; but I can say this, that sooner or later it will cost you dear, both in soul and body.

4. Take it at once to God.—Don't puzzle yourself with useless questions as to its nature, but take it straight to God. In the case of a brother, do not raise evil reports against him because of it, but go and tell God about it. In your own case do the same. Do not let it remain unconfessed a moment after it is discovered. It is unrighteousness; it is sin; it is breach of law. God hates it; you must hate it too. You must bring it to that God who hates it; and who, just because he hates it, wants you to bring it to him. Give it at once to him. He knows how to keep it, and to deal with it. If you keep it to yourself, it will be your ruin. It will be poison in your veins. It will eat as doth a canker. It is not too great for him to deal with or to cover. The blood of his only-begotten Son will cover it. Let that blood prove

its divine efficacy by the cleansing which it can administer to your soul. Rest not without forgiveness through the great propitiation. An unforgiven man is an unhappy man. Blessedness is the portion only of the forgiven. If you have not yet found the pardon, this blessedness cannot be yours. And if you but felt the misery of the unpardoned, and the joy of the pardoned, you would not rest till you had made sure of the forgiveness that there is with God, and tasted the reconciliation that they only know, who have settled the great question for eternity, at the foot of the cross.

There is such a thing as THE SECOND DEATH. And who shall deliver the doomed one from it? Who shall pray him up out of hell? The second death! Ah, when it has come to that, all is over! No Christ will do then; no blood; no cross! Oh, wait not till your sins have landed you in that! Take the proffered pardon. God gives it to you in his Son. Take it, and live for ever. He who died and lives presents to you the gift of the everlasting life,—life that no second death can touch,—life in Himself,—life beyond the valley of the shadow of death, in the city of the Living One, from which no life departs, and into which no death can enter.

SERMON XLI

THE THREE WITNESSES

"Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and

blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth."—1 JOHN 5:5, 6.

THE world is not for us but against us. It lieth in wickedness, and must be our enemy. It is Satan's kingdom, and can afford us neither home nor friendly shelter. It was Christ's foe, and it is ours no less; seeking our ruin both by force and craft. It has always hated the Church; it does so still. It hated the Master, and it hates the servant too. The seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman must be at variance with each other.

It is to be fought against; not yielded to. There can only be warfare between it and us; not friendship, not peace, not truce, not alliance, not compromise. In this warfare, it is faith only that can give us the victory,—faith which shews us the shadowy vanity of things seen and temporal, and the abiding glory of things unseen and eternal. The BELIEVING MAN is the only conqueror. It is as a believing man that he fights and overcomes. Mere earnestness will not do; nothing but faith.

In what, then, or in whom is it, that he believes? In Jesus as the Son of God. It is not faith in ideas, or principles, or opinions, or doctrines, that gives the victory. It is faith in Christ Jesus, the Son of the living God.

But what does this imply? And who is this Son of God? And how do we know that Jesus is the Son of God? To this the apostle answers, He "came by water and by blood;" that is, he was marked out by these two things;—and so proved to be "the coming one," the Messiah, the Son of God. These shewed him to be the Christ, and sealed him as such. Both of these things were needed, and both were given; the one at his baptism, the other at his crucifixion.

The Christ, revealed to Adam, was one who was to be truly the Son of man and the Son of God; who, as the seed of the woman, was to be bruised in his heel, when consummating his victory over the serpent.

The Christ revealed to the patriarchs and prophets was the same. The Christ of type and sacrifice was the same. The Christ of the prophets was still the same. He was such a Christ as could have a twofold testimony borne to him; a testimony by water and a testimony by blood; so that, had either of these been awanting when he came, the evidence of his being the very Christ, the Son of God, would have been incomplete. To these two God adds a third witness, confirming the testimony of the previous two,—the Holy Spirit. He also comes in as a witness-bearer, uniting his testimony to the others, and proclaiming the same truth,—giving his evidence to the same facts. So that thus we have a threefold testimony on earth, a testimony directed to one great point,—that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. Two witnesses under the law were sufficient to attest a matter; and God gives two witnesses, who are both most explicit in their testimony; but to make assurance yet surer, he adds a third, the Holy Spirit. And thus there are three that bear witness upon earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one; or, literally; "are towards this one thing," or, are directed to, or converge in this one point, viz., that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

This, then, is the way in which God lays the foundation for faith to rest upon. He not only sends his Son, but he accompanies his mission with convincing evidence as to who and what he is. He places a basis for faith, so sure and satisfactory, that a man, understanding it, can at once say, "Now I know of a truth that this is the Christ, the Seed of the woman, the Seed of Abraham, the Seed of David, the Son of Mary, the Son of God." It is in this way that God produces faith in us; not by calling on us to put forth some vast effort to accomplish an act which we call faith;" but by turning our eyes to the Person of the Messiah, and opening them to see it, and to see, at the same time, the evidence for Jesus of Nazareth being the Christ, the Son of the living God. You who complain of weak faith or no faith, and who are all the day crying, "Help my unbelief," yet turning your eye away from the object of faith, look here; look at God's testimony to his Sou. Mark the divine evidence given, the threefold

proof that Jesus is the Christ. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Let us look at this threefold evidence.

I. TheWATERsays Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.—That baptismal scene at Jordan means much. Not only by it did Jesus fulfil all righteousness, but by it he was declared to be the Son of God. In it we see the Father and the Spirit uniting in their testimony to that mighty fact, or truth, on which our faith rests,—that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of the living God. As the voice from heaven did audibly, as the descending Spirit, in his dove-like form, did visibly, so did the waters of baptism, sensibly and palpably, proclaim to us that Jesus was the Son of God. The announcement coming forth from that baptismal symbol, of which the one John made use, and of which the other John here reminds us, was most intelligible and explicit. It was neither ambiguous nor uncertain. It pointed out the person, while it proclaimed his character and office. And it came not from earth, but from heaven. It came from him who cannot be mistaken, and who will mislead no man; from him whose witness-bearing is the surest of all testimonies. Unbelief can no longer cavil or misdoubt; faith need no longer hesitate; here is God's own proclamation, that puts uncertainty aside, and sets all misgivings at rest. God himself, in that water, speaks to man, and says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." What farther need have we of witnesses?

II. TheBLOODsays Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.—On four occasions was the blood poured forth, at his circumcision; in Gethsemane; in Pilate's hall, when he was scourged and crowned with thorns; and on the cross. But it is to the testimony of the cross that the apostle here refers. That testimony was given both before and after death. The nails of the cross drew forth his blood before death, and the soldier's spear drew out the remainder after death; thus completely pouring out the "blood which was the life," and

announcing that he had thoroughly died, and that the evidence of that death was as complete as it was visible.

The blood is God's testimony that he is in very deed "the Christ;" the Seed of the woman; the Man with the bruised heel; the Messiah of the prophets; the Sin-offering of Israel; the Fulfiller of all types and promises. While the water says, "Unto us a Child is born;" the blood says, "He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, the chastisement of our peace was on him, and by his stripes we are healed." His baptism said to us, "The Word has been made flesh;" the cross proclaimed, "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world".

As, without the sacrificial life-taking on the cross, he would have been but half a Christ, nay, no Christ at all to us; so God has taken special pains to let us see that that life was really taken, and that he is in very deed the Christ of God. Hence the stress which John lays on the piercing of his side, and the issuing of the blood and water; "He that saw it bare record; and his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true; THAT YE MIGHT BELIEVE" (John 19:34, 35). And then he adds afterwards, "These are written that ye might BELIEVE THAT JESUS IS THE CHRIST, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name" (John 20:31).

On this testimony, then, let our faith rest. The witness is divine, for it is "the blood of God;" and he who speaks to us in that blood is Jehovah himself. The blood is the proof which God has given us, that this Jesus of Nazareth is in very deed the Christ of God. False religion and vain philosophy gather round a Christ of their own fashioning; a golden calf of their own moulding; a Christ whose blood was never shed. But that which is true and divine, acknowledges, as its alpha and omega, a Christ who died as well as lived; a Christ who took upon him our curse; a Christ whose person, however glorious in itself, is nothing to us sinners, without the bloodshedding of his sacrificial work.

III. TheSPIRITsays Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. It was the Spirit that bore witness to Christ at his baptism, when he descended on him like a dove; and it was the same Spirit who, at Pentecost, came down in such mighty power to sum up the testimony. As the Dove at Jordan, and as the tongue of fire in the upper chamber, he bore witness to the truth that Jesus is the Son of God. And still he carries on his testimony, though no longer by visible form, or audible sound. He testifies of Christ; he glorifies Christ. He points at once to his person and his cross; he takes us to his cradle at Bethlehem, and to his tomb at Golgotha. All that he now is doing bears reference to the Son of God. He tells us what the water means, and confirms its testimony. Thus is the evidence completed; nay, more than completed; for though two witnesses would have sufficed, according to the law, God has added this third one,—one in all respects divine, —to confirm the truth beyond the possibility of doubt. And now we know of a truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the sacrifice for sin, the Saviour of the world.

Now we know that the Son of God is come; and this is the restingplace of faith. The water says, "He is come;" the blood says, "He is come;" the Spirit says, "He is come." Here faith rests; and, resting here, it "overcomes the world." No other faith can give us the victory save that which roots itself in the truth, that Jesus is the Son of God, and in the evidence of this, supplied to us by these three witnesses. "A faithful witness will not lie;" and here are three faithful witnesses, furnished by God himself. A "true witness delivereth souls;" and here we have three true witnesses, on whose testimony we rest for the deliverance of our souls.

If, then, we would be conquerors, let us cast ourselves more absolutely on this threefold testimony, and drink in its spirit and meaning. It is only in proportion as we do so that we shall prove victorious. Nothing else can give victory but faith; and no faith can do this save that which leans on divine testimony. Every other will give way or break down. This only will stand, and, in standing, prove itself an "overcoming" faith; a world-overcoming faith, because a

faith in Him who has overcome the world for us. The more that we know of him who lived that he might do battle with the world, and died that he might vanquish it, the more shall we ourselves prove conquerors, "more than conquerors, through him who loved us."

The reason why so many are weak and sickly among us, so unable either to fight or to stand, is that they do not believe that which these three witnesses testify, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; or, if they believe it, they do not think it enough. They must have something added to this great truth before it will yield them either confidence or strength! But if God be true, it is, of itself, enough. If what the water says be true; if what the blood says be true; if what the Spirit says is true, we are provided with all we need, for the warfare and the victory. "Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ?" In all our battles let us take this as our watchword, the mighty, the divine spell, with which we overcome the enemy. There is nothing like it. And just as it is written, "Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ," so it is also written, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God." Can words be more explicit? If this great fact be true; if there be enough of evidence for it, and if it be, in its own large fulness, sufficient to bring you blessing, as God says it is, then why should we doubt, or why refuse, to take the gladness which this fact of facts embodies and presents? Most assuredly it does contain, as in a golden urn, all the peace, and the hope, and the joy, which a human soul can possess; and he who has not received this joy and peace, has not yet understood the meaning of this mighty fact. Is Jesus really the Christ? Is this proved and established beyond a doubt? Do you receive it as true, not upon the report of men, but upon the testimony of these three witnesses? Then is it not written that "whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God?" and what, then, should shake your peace or your confidence, save that which shakes the evidence of this blessed fact,—the evidence that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, and that this Christ of God died and rose from the dead?

Is this truth, this event, which God accounts so excellent and so momentous, a dubious thing? Or, even though certain, is it a small thing in your eyes;—a trivial and subordinate piece of knowledge which a man may accept, and yet not be the better for it, or reject, and yet be none the worse? Nay; it is no poor, no common thing. It is the greatest fact which our earth has yet witnessed; it is the most powerful, the most pregnant, the most vital, the most transforming of all. Take it gladly in. Bid it welcome. Let it have free course throughout your whole being, unchecked by any wretched surmises, as to its not being sufficient to do such great things for you. Take it in all its rich and boundless meaning, as at once the vindication of God's righteousness, and the exposition of his love; and you will find what peace, what life, what healing it can diffuse throughout your whole being. Like a goodly vessel, laden with the riches, the fruit, the fragrance, of a hundred climes,—nay, with the very glory of the heaven of heavens—it will enter your port and unload its divine freight, filling your soul,—were you the most sorrowful of earth's sons,—with the joy unspeakable and full of glory.

SERMON XLII

THE DIVINE BANQUET

"He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy, and of the holy."—LEV. 21:22.

IT is not easy to say whether the words. "bread of his God," refer generally to the sacrifices and offerings, or specially to the "shew-

bread." We take them as pointing to the latter; as, indeed, in any interpretation of the expression, the shew-bread must be included, if not mainly intended.

It was called the "shew-bread;" or, more properly, "the bread of the presence;" the bread that stood on the King's table, and in the King's presence; the bread which was therefore intimately connected with him who is called "the Angel of the Presence" (Isa. 62:9); the bread which was associated with him whose "presence" went with Israel whithersoever they went (Ex. 33:14).

The name of itself marked it as something different from the manna. That was "angels' food" (Ps. 78:25); it was the bread of heaven (Ps. 105:40); but this was "presence-bread," the King's own loaf; "royal dainties;" taken each Sabbath morning from the King's table, and given to the "royal priesthood" who ministered to the Mighty King. Yet was it made of common wheat, the fruit of the curse-laden soil; ground in the mill; mixed with water; kneaded by the hands of a man; baked by fire,—and this not altar-fire, but common fire from man's hearth,—like other bread. And though, in after times, all this was done by the Levites or Kohathites, yet at first it is enjoined on Moses himself, as the representative of the great King, whose bread it was. Such was the typical bread; the "bread of the presence;" bread setting forth something truer, and more substantial, more spiritual, more royal, more divine; the "true bread;" the bread of God; that "flesh which is meat indeed." For the food of the Church, in each age, has been the same; "they did all eat the same spiritual meat" (1 Cor. 10:3); and thus all along faith realised "the communion of the body of Christ" (1 Cor. 10:16), and even before he came, led Israel to see, that, "though many, they are one bread and one body, being all partakers of that one bread" (1 Cor. 10:17).

Let us examine this true "presence-bread," set before God's kings and priests as their true and eternal food.

I. It is provided by God.—As in carrying out his purpose in the old creation, he provided every fruit-bearing tree for man; so, in accomplishing the new creation, he has supplied the "food convenient." He gave the tree of life for the paradise of the first Adam; and he has not forgotten it in that of the second. He has made the provision for his house; and he has also blessed it. For the sustaining the life which he imparts, he provides the food required. Therefore was the "presence-bread" of old called "the bread of our God," because both itself, and that which it symbolised, were provided by God himself. To clothe the lilies and to feed the ravens, was to give us the pledge of fullest blessing for the souls of those who were more precious by far than lilies or ravens; and to place the twelve weekly loaves on the sanctuary table for the representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel, was to give to his whole Church, in all coming ages, the thousand times repeated assurance, that he would provide for each member of that vast but scattered company, the true bread, even the flesh of Him who was given for the life of the world.

II. It is prepared by God himself.—Moses, as representing God, prepared the twelve loaves; and God himself has prepared the better bread, the flesh of the Son of Man. "A body hast thou prepared me." As it was not mere fruit, the simple growth of the soil, that was to be laid on the sanctuary table as God's bread, but loaves carefully prepared of certain materials, so was it in the case of him whose "flesh is meat indeed." Very careful was the preparation of this bread of God. It was committed to "the Holy Ghost," and it was accomplished by "the power of the highest" (Luke 1:35). Various were the earthly processes through which it had to pass, before it could be laid on God's table and become proper food for God's royal priesthood; and, in the growth of the wheat in Israel's fields for Israel's shew-bread,—its cutting down, its grinding, its kneading, its firing,—in all these we have a symbol of the processes, by means of which the bread of God was prepared for us. In the history of the birth, the life, the sorrows, the hardships, the blood-shedding, the death of the incarnate Son of God, we have a description of the way in which the "shew-bread" or "presence-bread" of the Church was

prepared, according to God's own method, for our everlasting food. A fragment of our common humanity, separated from the mass by God's own hand, is united to Godhead in the person of the Eternal Son. This God-man, very man and very God, is subjected to poverty and want, to hunger and thirst, to weariness and sleeplessness, to pain and sorrow, to the persecution of man and the fire of God's anger, till being "made perfect through suffering," he becomes "the bread of God." Israel's shew-bread was not eaten raw, nor unkneaded, nor unbaked, nor unfired; so, neither could our bread be fit for our use till it had passed through similar processes of preparation. Ah! how little we realise the truth, that a Christ not made perfect through sufferings, would have been no Christ to us; and that every grief he bore, every change he passed through, was fitting him to be more fully and more truly the "bread of life" for us.

III. It is given to us by God.—God causes it to be provided for us; nay, he prepares it himself; and then having thus provided and prepared it, he gives it. "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son" (John 3:16); "the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (John 6:51); "this is my body which is given for you" (Luke 22:19). "My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven" (John 6:32). There is no buying on our part, or selling on his; it is all a gift from first to last; the gift of divine love, the donation of royal munificence; the liberality of him who, as he would not have us bought with anything but blood divine, or clothed with anything but heavenly raiment, so would he not have us fed on anything save "the finest of the wheat." Yes, "this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." He that hath the Son hath life; and he that believes the Father's testimony hath the Son. "All things are ready, come ye to the feast." "Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved." And to the sinner it says, "Wherefore will ye spend your money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken unto me, and (ye shall) eat that which is good, and your soul shall delight itself in fatness" (Isa. 55:2). "This is the true bread, of which if a man eat he shall live for ever."

IV. Who they are who feast on it.—Perhaps the answer to such a question will be,—God's priesthood, his church. Nor would this be incorrect; yet it would be defective. No doubt this heavenly bread is for them, just as the tree of life was for Adam, or the temple shewbread was for the sons of Aaron. But it is so specially called "the bread of our God;" and the table on which it is set is so specially God's own table; and the place where it is to be eaten is so manifestly the royal banquet-hall of heaven, that we come to the conclusion that God himself is partaker of this feast as well as we. The King, sitting at his own table, in his own festal chamber, not only feeds his guests, but himself partakes of that which is set before them. Of wine it is said (no doubt in reference to the drink-offering), "it cheereth God and man" (Judges 9:13); as if God himself were refreshed by those offerings by which the souls of his people were refreshed. In reference to the meat-offering and the drink-offering, it is said that they are "of a sweet savour unto the Lord" (Num. 28:8), shewing us that the thing in which his people delighted was the same with which he himself was satisfied. It was not the mere wine, nor the bread, nor the lamb, nor the frankincense, which was thus so acceptable to God, and in which his soul delighted; it was that which these all symbolised and embodied; that which in the fulness of time was to be unfolded in its manifold excellence,—the unsearchable riches of Christ, the fulness of him "in whom it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell."

It was for himself, then, no less than for us, that the Father was preparing this divine feast; it is for himself, as truly as for us, that he has furnished this table, and set on it that divine bread which is to be his repast, and ours as his priesthood, throughout that eternal Sabbath in which we are both to rest and feast with him. The sacrifice is over, but the feast remains, for it is eternal; standing perpetually upon God's table, and not needing, like Israel's perishable shew-bread, to be removed and renewed, but abiding the same for ever; not consumed, though ever fed upon by numbers without number, but, like the five Bethsaida loaves, leaving more behind at the end than it had at the beginning!

Israel's various sacrifices and offerings of all kinds were the various dishes set upon the great templetable; each of them full of meaning; each of them containing that which would satisfy and comfort; every one of them setting forth some part of the glorious fulness of the God-man, as the true food of souls; and all of them together representing that complete and blessed feast of "fat things" partaken of by God and by his redeemed, in some measure now, but hereafter to be more fully enjoyed at the great marriage-supper in the New Jerusalem, when that shall be fulfilled, so long realised but in parts and fragments, "I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me" (Rev. 3:20).

Thus God in preparing Christ, in making him what he is, in filling him with the divine fulness, was not only providing bread for us to all eternity, but for himself; for with nothing less than this could he be satisfied. There is that in Christ which affords infinite and unutterable satisfaction to the Father; and if, over the creation of heaven and earth, he could rejoice, pronouncing it very good, and feasting on the wondrous workmanship of his own hands, how much more will he delight in him who is infinitely more glorious, more excellent, more perfect than all heaven and earth together; how much more truly and satisfyingly will he feast on him who is the infinity of created and uncreated excellence, the vast treasure-house of all that God, or man, or angels, can desire, the perfection of all perfection, the beauty of all beauty, the glory of all glory.

Israel's bread was called "shew-bread" or "presence-bread," because set before the presence of Jehovah, and eaten in his holy place. So is it with Christ. He is specially the bread of the Presence, the bread set before the King, and eaten in his palace. As it is said of the feast in Ezekiel's temple, "The prince, he shall sit in it, to eat bread before the Lord" (Ezek. 44:3); and so do we sit down at a communion-table to eat the true presence-bread before the Lord, the Lord himself, in whose presence we sit, feasting along with us.

Israel's shew-bread was for the priesthood; no others were to eat it. So the bread of God is for God's true priesthood, his church. It is not for angels, at least in the way that it is for the redeemed. Angels' food was, indeed, once given to man; but man's food is not to be given to angels. It is something of which only redeemed men can partake, and in partaking of which they are associated with God.

Israel's shew-bread was specially for the Sabbath feast of the priesthood. So, as we have seen, is Christ the food, not only of our Sabbaths here, but of the eternal Sabbath in reserve for us, when we shall enter into the temple of our God, to go out no more.

Israel's shew-bread is called the "continual" bread. Though the symbolic loaves were of necessity changed every week, yet there were always loaves on the table, and always loaves for the priest's repasts, so that the bread seemed always to be in the process of being eaten, and yet never diminished nor consumed. Our better shew-bread is "continual;" it is "everlasting;" and as the bush burned with fire, yet was never consumed, so the bread is always being eaten, yet never wasted. It is everlasting bread.

This, then, is the "true bread;" the "bread of God, the bread of life;" that which God calls "the bread of their God;" "My bread" (Num. 28:2); the eternal food of the soul; that on which we feed, and on which God feeds; that, in feeding on which, we have communion with God, and God with us, both sitting at the one table and partaking of the one bread. As it is at the cross of Christ that we first meet with God in peace, so it is round the eternal table where the great shew-bread is placed that we meet continually, and carry on the intercourse begun at the cross, "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? so that we, though one body and one bread, are all partakers of that one bread." We have thus found a common centre, a true and congenial meeting-place. We feed on that which God calls his bread; and with that bread we are satisfied, even as he is satisfied; well-pleased with that with which he is well-pleased. We sit down at the same table, and partake

of the same food; and the Lamb slain, the broken body of the eternal Son of God, is at once the centre of our fellowship, the substance of our repast, and the fountain of our joy.

SERMON XLIII

BETHANY AND ITS FEAST

"Then Jesus, six days before the passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment."—JOHN 12:1–3.

WE find ourselves here at Bethany, amid fig-trees, and olives, and sycamores. In its quiet hollow, on the eastern slope of Olivet,—there it lies, encircled with its orchards, out of the reach of the city din. It has been noted for many things in the life of Christ, but specially for the resurrection of Lazarus. The like could not be said of Jerusalem, though so nigh at hand. And with what an eye of solemn wonder would men look on it, as they passed on their way to or from Jericho, saying to each each other,—In yon village a man was raised from the dead.

The house at which we find ourselves is that of Simon the leper (Matt. 26, Mark 14); a house that had once been shunned, and would still be looked upon with a suspicious eye. To this house Jesus had been invited; and he goes. What matters the name of a leprous house to one who has come to heal; to one whom no infection can touch, and all diseases obey. The feast is a great one; and many are there; some to see Jesus, and some Lazarus, the risen man. It is Jesus, however, who is the centre of the circle; and round him the group is gathered. The persons mentioned here are only spoken of in connection with Him: Lazarus, Mary, Martha, are but subordinate parts, in a scene of which the Lord is the centre. From him it is that they derive all their interest and significance. Their names, their persons, their characters, their movements, are nothing to us, save in their relation to him.

Apart from him, too, the feast is but a common meal, such as is every day partaken of among men. It is His presence that sanctifies it, and turns it into something special, if not sacramental. When he comes in and sups with us, the room, the table, the food, the company undergo a transfiguration. Connection with him dignifies and ennobles, nay, consecrates them. Without him all things are low and tame. With him they become sacred and lofty. As his touch healed, so did his presence elevate and glorify.

Let us note each of the four personages here, in so far as they are linked with Him who gives meaning and importance to what they are, and what they do.

I. Simon entertaining.—He had known Christ before; though when and where we are not told. It seems to have been his leprosy that first brought him to Christ, and Christ to him. His disease was his link of connection with the Lord; and had it not been for it, he might never have sought him. It is still so with us. Our first interview is respecting our sin, our moral leprosy. It is conscience that seeks the interview, even though filled with misgivings as to its result. We go to converse with him, not about the good that is in us, but the evil. The sense of

guilt draws us to him as the pardoner, and the consciousness of sin constrains us to deal with him as the healer and renewer. And as we began, so also do we go on. Sin brought us to him, and him to us; and sin keeps us constantly at his side. Intercourse with him has become a necessity of our new being. It cannot break or end. It must not be loosened, but drawn closer every day; for the more that we get from him, the more we learn our need. Simon finds that he has much more to do with Jesus than merely for the cure of his leprosy; therefore he must have him under his roof, and at his table. So is it with us. We begin our intercourse by going to him with our sins; but we soon discover that it cannot be ended here. Our acquaintanceship must be a companionship; a constant interchange of thought and sympathy. We invite him to our house, and he comes. We ask him to dine with us, and he comes. For no invitation, whether from Pharisee or publican, did the Lord ever decline. He sits down to feast with us at our table here; and while sitting there as our guest, he invites us to sup with him at his table above, where we shall be the guests, and he the host. How great the honour enjoyed by Simon, of entertaining the Lord of glory; sitting at his own table, with Jesus at his side as his guest! And how marvellous the condescension of Christ, in thus sitting at the leper's table as one of his household! Here, then, is the Saviour that suits us;—the healer of the leper, and the guest of the healed one! We say to him, "Heal me," and he heals; "come in," and he comes; "sit down at my table," and he sits down straightway.

In this Bethany-feast, it is interesting to notice what we may call the sinner's side of the gospel. Here, it is not Christ inviting and receiving the sinner; but the sinner inviting and receiving Christ. It is not Christ saying, "Come to me, and I will give you rest;" it is the sinner saying to Christ, "Come to me, and I will feast you;" it is not Christ knocking at the sinner's door, but the sinner knocking at Christ's; it is not Christ supplying the sinner's wants, but the sinner supplying Christ's. In our dealings with the Lord we must not overlook either side. He is, no doubt, first with us in all things; but this should only make us the more anxious to remember the response,—the lifetime's response,—with which he expects to be met.

The love and the embrace must be mutual, as also the invitation and the joy. It is not Joseph weeping on the neck of Benjamin; but Benjamin weeping on the neck of Joseph.

II. Lazarus feasting.—He is a fellow-guest, with the Lord himself, at Simon's board. When Simon sends his invitation to Christ to dine with him, he bids Lazarus also to the feast. And there this raised one sits, side by side with Jesus, at the leper's table. What a feast, and what a company! The like had not been seen before; Simon the healed one, and Christ the Healer; Lazarus the raised one, and Christ the Raiser; dipping in the same dish, drinking of the same cup, conversing together on the things of the kingdom.

How or when Lazarus first became acquainted with Christ we know not; but it was his death that had brought about the special closeness of contact; and it was at the tomb, not at the table, that the Lord and he had so wonderfully met. The living One had gone into the dwelling of death, and there saluted the dead man in his dark abode. What a meeting! Ah, surely, Lazarus then discovered that he needed Jesus in a way such as he had never done before. Back from the silent chamber Jesus had led him; and now he sits down with him, at a table of earth: type of the risen saints who are to take their places with the Lord at the marriage-supper of the Lamb. What has Lazarus now to do, but to gaze and listen? Simon entertains; Lazarus sits as guest, drinking in the everlasting words from heavenly lips, and holding fellowship with the blessed Speaker. This is our true posture, as those who have died and risen with Christ! Listening; yes, LISTENING; not bustling, nor talking; but listening to the Lord. There is a time for working and for speaking; but there is a time for listening. Blessed are they that know it, in an impetuous age like ours. When shall we learn it; and, in so doing, taste the profound tranquillity with which it soothes the soul?

III. Martha Serving.—This is her usual employment. To serve the Lord of glory; to watch at the table; to observe all his motions: to anticipate his wishes and supply his wants; this is Martha's posture,

both of body and soul. It was the lowest place, yet not the least blessed; more like his own than any other. He came to serve; and in this Martha imitates him. To resemble him in anything was to be partaker of his blessedness and to share his fellowship. To have in us any part of "that mind that was in Christ Jesus," is both honour and joy. Service to Christ in any form, how blessed! To loose his shoelatchet; to wipe the dust from his feet or the sweat from his weary brow; to pour water upon his hands or to prepare his couch; to supply any of his commonest wants or render the simplest offices of happy love: these are things which angels might covet, even were it for nothing else than the near contact with himself into which they bring us; for anything that brings us within the sound of his voice, or the glance of his eye, or the touch of his hand, must be blessedness. And if any one asks, how this can be done now, seeing he is in heaven and we on earth: we answer at once in his own gracious words, "inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." He serves us, and we serve him; and in this mutual service we have our mutual fellowship and common joy.

IV. Mary anointing.—Reverence, homage, love, are all embodied in this act. It was with desire to honour him; and also with a dim halfconscious reference to his coming death and burial that she did this. She grudges no cost; and as the Bride in the song says, "the best wine for my beloved," so said her heart, if not her lips, "the best spikenard for my beloved Lord." All to honour him whom she so reverently loved. She is not entertaining, like Simon; she is not feasting, like Lazarus; she is not serving, like Martha; she is doing what some would consider a very useless thing, pouring ointment on his feet! That is all! Oh, useless expense and waste of substance, that might have benefited the poor! Yet her act gets most notice from her Lord. He says nothing to Simon, nor Lazarus, nor Martha. It is Mary that he marks and commends. Her fervent love, pouring itself out in one single act of honour, gets the highest notice. Is there no silent lesson here for us? It is not labour, nor suffering, that get the fullest commendation; it is love; pure, warm, ungrudging, loyal love. It is

this that gets the Master's "Well done." He can do without the others, but not without this.

Thus, these four are presented to us in connection with the Lord; and such are the different points at which the connection comes out. Simon's connection is that of entertaining Christ; Lazarus's is that of feasting with him; Martha's that of serving him; and Mary's that of anointing. In all these ways there is connection, living connection, the contact both of faith and love. There is nearness, there is communion; not once, but constantly; not for a day, but for ever. It matters little in which of these ways we may have this connection. They are all real and they are all blessed;—the entertaining, the feasting, the serving, the anointing. We may have each of them in turn; for a saint's life is an enjoyment of all the four. Yesterday he was Simon; to-day he is Lazarus; to-morrow he may be Martha; the day after, Mary!

It is but little indeed that we can taste here, even in the walk of happiest fellowship; for the best of earthly feasts are but foretastes of the marriage-supper. But the whole glad fulness we shall yet enjoy, when all things are made new; and when we shall meet a long absent Lord, not at our table, but at his own; not in Simon's house, but in the great hall of the new creation, when God shall have cleansed this old leprous earth and healed its leprous dwellers; not amid the figtrees of Bethany, but under the shade of the eternal palms. That day shall be the day of the Master's joy, as well as of ours; he feasting with us, and we with him; he enjoying our fellowship, and we his, for evermore.

SERMON XLIV

THE CHURCH'S WIDOWHOOD

"And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary."—LUKE 18:3.

WITHOUT entering at length on an exposition of this parable, in either of its aspects, practical or prophetical, we may say this much, that it sets before us, under the figure of a widow,—a feeble and injured widow,—the true character and standing of the Church of God on earth, during the present age. In numbers she is few,—a mere election, a gathering out, no more; in power, slender; in honour, little set by; in alliances, little courted, nay, shunned; in relative position, unfit to sway the world's counsels; in political and social influence, save as the salt of the earth, incapable of what man calls great achievements or overawing combinations, seeing she is scattered and divided among all kingdoms; and that, not like some vast network of electrical wires encompassing the globe, and capable, by its union of parts, to act with simultaneous force upon the nations, but only like the separate dew-drops, which, though many and pure, and fitted to cheer the blossom on which they rest, have no power to turn the rock into a garden, or to make the wilderness blossom as the rose.

That such is the case, nay, that such must be the case, appears from such things as these:—

(1.) The Father's purpose concerning her.—That purpose has great things in store for her, in the ages to come; but at present her lot is to be weakness, poverty, hardship, and the endurance of wrong. Through much tribulation she must enter the kingdom. It is not the purpose of God that she should be numerous, or powerful, or honourable; but, like her Head, disesteemed, rejected, despised, treated oftentimes as the offscouring of all things. Her success is not to be measured by the extent to which she has been able to overawe, or to attract, or to dazzle the world,—to disarm its enmity, or to

purchase its friendship; but simply, and only, by the manner in which she has been enabled to fulfil the Father's will; to manifest her sympathies with the Father's purpose; to be faithful to her calling and character; to testify for him whose blood has bought her, and to be separate from the evil that is in "this present evil world."

(2.) Her conformity to her Lord.—He is her pattern, not merely as to character, but as to the whole course of life. In him she learns what her lot on earth is to be. He the rejected one, even among his own, she must be rejected too. He the hated one, she must be hated too. Better treatment than he met with, she is not entitled to expect; nor should she wish to have. Union with him in reigning is her hope; union with him in suffering is her experience here. Conformity to him in holy glory hereafter is what she looks for; conformity to him in shame and sorrow now, is what she knows to be her lot. She feels that she could not be the true Bride of a suffering Bridegroom, if her path below were one all smiles and sunshine.

(3.) Her standing by faith.—It is the world's unbelief that so specially makes it the world; so it is the Church's faith that makes her what she is, the Church. All that she can say for herself is what the apostle did for himself and the saints of his day, "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us." Her connection with the testimony of God, with him of whom it speaks, and with the glory to which it points, is one simply of faith. It was faith in that record which first drew her out of the world, and which still keeps her separate from it. As one believing in a kingdom yet to come, she shakes herself free from the entanglements of time. She becomes a stranger here, having no continuing city, but satisfied with the tent of the desert, till she reach the city of habitation. The faith which realises the unseen and the eternal, displaces, both in her vision and in her heart, the things seen and temporal.

(4.) The condition of the world out of which she is called.—It is an evil world. It lieth in wickedness; and her calling is to come out from it, and, like Noah, to condemn it. All belonging to that world is evil,

and what has she to do with it? Satan is its prince and god, and what has she to do with him? It crucified her Lord, what can she have to do with it? Her mission is not to transform the world into the Church, but to be God's instrument in taking out of it a people for his glory. In such a world, how can she be other than a stranger? In its cities, how can she be other than a sojourner? She has nothing in common with it. All is uncongenial.

(5.) Her prospects.—She is an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ Jesus. An everlasting kingdom, an unfading crown, an eternal weight of glory,—these are her prospects. What has she then to do with a world where all these are unrecognised, nay, despised or disowned? As the Bride of Christ, what sympathy can there be in her bosom, with the vanities of a world so vain as this? It doth not yet, indeed, appear what she shall be; but she knows that, when he shall appear, she shall be like him, for she shall see him as he is; and having this hope in him, she purifies herself, even as he is pure.

The Church, then, is thus, of necessity, a widow. Hence, while the Spirit of God uses various figures to describe her, they all, more or less, point to some such forlorn and helpless condition. Whether she is spoken of as a pilgrim, or a stranger, or an orphan, or a little flock, or a lily amongst thorns, still the leading thought is the same. In her orphanage, or strangership, or widowhood, she still moves before us as the separated, rejected, lonely one, in the midst of an unfriendly world, that far outnumbers her, and that feels itself strangely incommoded and made uncomfortable by the presence of one who sets light by all the precious and pleasurable things of earth, having her eye and her heart fixed upon something more glorious, of which the world knows nothing.

It is by acting out her character, fully and consistently, that she honours God, and bears witness to Christ, and condemns the world, and testifies to the glory of the promised kingdom. It is thus, too, that she wins the eye of the heedless worldling, pointing upwards to the incorruptible crown, and bidding men set their affection on

things above, and seek their treasure and their joy in heaven. It is her widowhood that is her testimony. It is her widow's weeds, with which she dare not part, that make known beyond mistake, and yet without a voice, what she thinks of the world and the world's ways; how she disesteems the world and the world's joys; how thoroughly she has broken off from the world and the world's companionships, and taken the true measure of its fascinating gaieties; how wide she deems the difference between herself and the children of time; how stedfastly she has set her face towards the kingdom; and how completely the King in his beauty has absorbed her soul, and displaced the poor objects of admiration or affection with which the world would seek to win her steps back to itself, and recover her heart to the dreams of creature-love and creature-beauty. How solemnly does her widow's cry, "Avenge me of mine adversary,"—"How long, O Lord, how long!"—proclaim to the world a truth which it seems to have forgotten, that its King and Lord is absent; thus reminding it of the shade which that absence has thrown over creation, by telling of the blank which it has made in her own bosom, even though she knows that she is his, and that he is hers.

If, then, the Church forsake this position, and forego this character, she abandons her calling, she lowers her testimony, she destroys her usefulness, she becomes unfaithful to Christ, and, instead of preserving her purity, she becomes the mother of a spurious race of Christians, who are neither Christ's nor the world's; who think it possible to make the best of both worlds; in whose features one can find few traces of resemblance to the great Exemplar; in whose constitution and habits one can discover none of those elements of power, and hardness, and endurance, which primitive days exhibited; in whose doings, or darings, or sacrifices, one can detect nothing of that zeal, and self-denial, and decision, which led one of other days to say, "I count not my life dear unto me, that I may finish my course with joy."

A widow's proper raiment, as well as her true ornaments, are her weeds. Gold, and silver, and precious stones, she has put off. They are the symbols of mirth, and gaiety, and triumph; and what has she to do with these, in the absence of her Lord, and in the midst of a world that disowns him? It is in her weeds that she passes along the world's highway, as one who has little in common with it, whose sympathies have all gone upwards to One whom, having not seen, she loves. They speak of an absent Husband. They tell of faithful affection and constancy, as well as of indifference to all love save that of him whose memory she cherishes, and whose absence she mourns. They are expressive of indifference to the attractive scenes and objects of earth, not merely because of their uncongeniality, but because they cannot be truly enjoyed in separation from the Beloved One.

A "widow indeed" is thus described by the apostle:—"She that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day" (1 Tim. 5:5). But a mere widow in name is one who "liveth in pleasure," and is thus "dead while she liveth." The true Church of God is the former; the false church, the harlot-bride of Satan, is the latter; for she openly repudiates the name of widow, while she lays aside the weeds of widowhood, saying, "I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow;" decking herself all the while "in gold, and silver, and precious stones, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet" (Rev. 18:12).

This contrast between these two not only shews us the right standing of the one church, and the false and faithless character of the other, but it intimates this, that one of the church's most subtile temptations will be to lose sight of, if not to disown, her widowhood, and to live, and act, and speak, as if she were well content with the world as it is, and had no consciousness of any blank, either within her or without.

The world loves not the faithful widow, and would fain seduce her to a second marriage,—a marriage with itself. Decked in costly array, it would admire her, and give her its willing fellowship. But dressed only in the widow's mournful garb, it cannot tolerate her. Her faithfulness to her Lord condemns it. Her seclusion and separation rebuke it. Her continuing in supplication and prayers night and day it cannot away with. Her wistful eye, glancing eagerly upwards, as if to see the Unseen, and greet the absent One, is a continual reproof. The widow's cry sorely disturbs the world's peace, and, ringing nightly through its glittering halls of pleasure, turns all its music into discord.

Nor less does Satan dislike the widow's weeds and the widow's cry. For they remind him that his day is short, and that he who is to bind him in chains, and cast him out of his dominions, will soon be here. They torment him before his time. They proclaim the doom of his harlot-spouse, who sits now as queen, in that "one hour" when desolation shall overwhelm her (Rev. 18:19). They point to the glory of the now widowed church, in that day, when, instead of her attire of sackcloth, she shall be arrayed in the "fine linen, clean and white," and, with her long-parted Husband restored to her embrace, she shall be exalted to the sovereignty of that very world where she has been treated as "the off-scouring of all things."

The hostility of the world and its prince to the Church of God is not new. It is the ancient feud between the two "seeds" (Gen. 3:15), which, in successive forms, and with varying intensity, each age has evolved. Compromise or inconsistency may modify this warfare; but ended it cannot be, save in the extinction of the one seed or the other. The world hopes to absorb the Church, and so to terminate the variance; but this absorption is what the true Church so greatly dreads, for by it she loses and her rival gains everything. It is an absorption, the root of which is unbelief, and the development of which is, at the best, the form of godliness without its power.

SERMON XLV

THE CHURCH'S WIDOWHOOD

"And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary."—LUKE 18:3.

MOST unweariedly has Satan sought, age after age, to silence the widowed Church's cry, to muffle her voice, to seduce her into unfaithfulness, and to persuade her to part with her weeds of widowhood. That he has never wholly succeeded we know; for a remnant, at least, has always been found who abode faithful, though sometimes clothed in sackcloth, in addition to the widow's raiment, and sometimes with that sackcloth stained with blood. Yet too frequently has he succeeded in part,—to an extent which may well alarm us, and lead to self-questionings of the most searching kind. He succeeded in a measure with the church of Ephesus, so that her Lord was constrained to address her as one who had left her first love. He succeeded still more with Sardis, till only a few names were left which had not defiled their garments. Even more sadly did he succeed with Laodicea; bringing her into such a condition of evil that she was on the very edge of entire rejection; elating her with such thoughts of self-sufficiency and wealth as to make her wholly lose sight of her estate of lowly widowhood; decking her with the world's gay attire, and leading her to exchange the widow's cry for the world's song, "I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing." But the full measure of his success is only seen in Babylon. In her, seduction has been triumphant, and not a vestige either of the widow's weeds or of the widow's cry can be found in her. The

temptation which proved so unsuccessful in the Lord has succeeded in her,—the offer of the world's kingdoms. With these, Satan has bewitched and beguiled her. For these, she has forsaken her Lord, and espoused herself to the god of this world, who satiates her to her heart's content with the carnal abundance of his kingdom, so that she is no longer a widow, but a queen; no longer desolate, but "glorifying herself, and living deliciously;" no longer poorly or plainly clothed, but decked in purple, and pearls, and gold; no longer crying, in her helplessness, "Avenge me of mine adversary," but ruling over the nations, nay, giving them to drink of the golden cup of her uncleanness, nay, seducing even the kings of the earth to pay her suit and service, intoxicating them with the pleasures of her unlawful love.

Between the state of backsliding Ephesus and that of apostate Babylon, there is a mighty difference; and yet these churches reveal but different degrees of the same evil. Ephesus represents the beginning, Babylon the end, of the downward course, between which extremities there exist many stages and gradations; but the type of evil is, to a certain extent, the same in all. In every one of them we see Satan laying snares for the Church, beguiling her out of her widow's seclusion, making her dissatisfied with her poverty and weakness, persuading her to put off her weeds, and conform to the gay attire of the multitude around.

This, then, is one of the Church's special dangers. Such is Satan's object in assailing her. Such the small beginnings of apostasy, and such the fatal end! In ways most subtle, by degrees quite imperceptible, she is persuaded to leave her first love; and then, having done that, she is ready for any amount of backsliding.

Is it not thus that Satan is spreading his fascinations for the Church in our day? Fain would he draw her out of her seclusion into the gay whirl of earth. He spares no art to tempt her to act inconsistently with her widow's character, and to become unfaithful to her widow's vow. His object is to bring her down from her high standing as the

Church of God, holy and beloved, separated unto Christ, and set on high by his redeeming power; to draw her off from that consecrated ground which her Lord had intended her to occupy, that she may mingle with the bustling crowds of the world's highway, or take her place in its assemblies of pleasure and revelry.

In carrying on his seductions, he makes use of various appliances. He begins with objects which are in themselves lawful; he goes on with those which are suspicious and questionable; and he ends with those which are positively sinful and pernicious.

He approaches the Church subtilely and with fair words, as an angel of light. How excellent and noble is science,—how fitted to exalt the soul, and to feed its immortal longings! Most true. Nor ought we ever to say one word to the disparagement or depreciation of science. But may it not be too absorbing? May it not displace higher things? May it not lead to a too exclusive cultivation of the understanding, and so nourish intellectual pride, and seduce the soul into the mere wisdom of this world? The Church is to be on her guard; not against science, but against the way in which science has been used to dazzle or bewilder the Church's eye, and so withdraw her affection and her gaze from the things above.

Or, again, he comes to her applauding the world's literature, and exhibiting it to her in all the fascinations of poetry and romance. Let us not discredit literature, or treat it all as alike unprofitable. But let us beware of its enchantments. Let us see that even in its lawful parts it does not come between us and the vision of the eternal kingdom, or lead us astray with the enticing words of man's wisdom. And as to those parts of it that appeal to the sentiment, or the passions, or the lusts of our nature, which are mere gratifications of our love of pleasure, such as the novel, or the idle song, or the loose opera;—how can we touch, or taste, or handle? What has a heaven-born soul to do with earthly vanities like these? What has the widowed spouse of Christ, mourning her Lord's absence, and longing for his return, to do with scenes and sounds such as these, which feed the flesh, which

eat out the very core of faith, which rekindle fires that should be for ever quenched, and refasten links that should be for ever broken?

Or, farther, he comes to her with the more direct blandishments of pleasure as his snares. "What sin, what harm in the dance, or the theatre or the assembly?" And how often is he at once responded to, —"Yes, what sin, what harm in these? May a man not be a Christian and yet enjoy these?" This would we say in reply. In primitive days no man would have thought of claiming the name of Christian who enjoyed them; and if a man can think himself a Christian while enjoying these, he must have misunderstood the character of a follower of Christ; he must have forgotten the Lord's own awful words,—"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me;" and he must have set aside the apostle's solemn exhortation, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world: if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." If any say, "This is an hard saying, who can hear it?" we answer, Is it harder than that, "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth?" Is it harder than that, "The friendship of the world is enmity to God?" Is it harder than that, "Come out, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing?" Is it harder than that, "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partaker of the Lord's table, and the table of devils?"

Besides, what congeniality can one whose characteristic is that of widowhood, and orphanage, and strangership, find in such scenes as these? Laughter and revelling are for the whole-hearted and the sorrowless; how suit they the widow's weeds and the widow's cry? If the Church of God would mingle in such scenes, she must first renounce her widowhood; for how strange, how spectral, would be the entrance of widowhood, in the reality of grief, as well as in the outward garb of mourning, into such haunts of hollow mirth as the gay world presents! How startling, nay, how displeasing and disturbing, would be the sombre hue of the widow's raiment in that blazing hall of midnight,

"That dazzling mass of artificial light

That shews all things, but nothing as they are."

Into such uncongenialities, how is it possible for the Church of God to enter? With incongruities and inconsistencies like these, she can have no sympathy. If she understands her own character and calling, she must see that she has a peculiar path to pursue,—a path which cannot admit of any such compromise between the things of heaven and the things of earth. She, like her Lord, is from above; the world, like its prince, is from beneath,—and how can there be an alliance between parties, whose interests, sympathies, hopes, joys, are so far asunder? How can the Church of God descend from the high eminence to which she has been lifted up, and tread again that enchanted ground which she professes to have forsaken for ever? Can she lose sight of her calling? Can she forget her widowhood? Can she see no crime in being unfaithful to her absent Lord, and unjust to the memory of one who has loved her so well? Can she think of imitating (even in spirit, or for a day) the apostate Church, Satan's harlot bride, and saying, "I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow?"

The god of this world is doing his utmost, in these last days, to ensnare the Church, to seduce her into worldliness, to draw down her eye from the heavenly glory, to silence her cry, to induce her to drop her widow's raiment, and if not altogether to identify herself with the world, at least to be less peculiar, less singular in her walk, less solemn in her testimony against the "fashion of this world," the "things that perish with the using," "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life."

Shall he succeed? Shall his sophistry prevail? Shall his appeals to all that is best in the natural man be met with acquiescence on the part of the saints of God? Shall his arguments and wily flatteries, addressed so skilfully to our love of natural beauty, wisdom, goodness, truth, be yielded to, so that we shall give up our

distinctiveness as the called of God, and the heirs of his kingdom? Shall he persuade us to be less strict, less holy, less heavenly, with less of the sorrowing widow in our deportment, and more of the crowned queen?

Shall we resist, or shall we yield? Shall we hold fast our profession, or shall we fling it aside? Shall we try to seize a portion here, or shall we be content to wait in faith, until the Lord return?

Surely this is a question for the age,—a question for the Church of God,—a question for every child of the kingdom. It is a question, too, for those who are still wholly of the earth: "Will ye cling to the earth; and what will that earth to which you cling do for you?" It is a question for those who think it possible to be both lovers of God and lovers of pleasure: "Will ye try to reconcile what is irreconcileable? Is not God enough without the world,—is not Christ enough without its pleasures?" It is a question for the anxious and the earnest: "Will ye not decide,—will ye waver, will ye halt, will ye try something less than an entire surrender of the whole man to God?" It is a question for the Christian: "Will you be less than your name implies,—less than a child of heaven, less than an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ?" It is by faith you stand. It was the belief of God's free love, as manifested in the cross of his Son, that made you what you are; and if that faith has any meaning, it means that you are no longer of the world, that your treasure is above, that your inheritance is not here, and that you are waiting, in patient love and hope, amid weariness and buffeting and trouble, for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

SERMON XLVI

THE WORLD'S ORACLES

"The idols have spoken vanity."—ZECH. 10:2.

THERE are not many who think for themselves; and even those who are reckoned to do so, depend for the materials of thinking upon what they hear, or see, or touch. In the things of God this must be so, much more than in others. It is in hearing him that we are furnished with materials for thinking rightly about him. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." God's place is to speak, and ours is to listen. He expects us to listen to him, for he has a right to speak; and we know that, if we do not, we are sure to think wrong concerning himself and his ways; concerning both good and evil.

But we do not like this. It is irksome to be always in the attitude of listeners; at least, of listeners to God. We prefer guessing, or speculating, or reasoning. Or, if we find that we must have recourse to some authority beyond ourselves, we betake ourselves to any pretender to wisdom,—and, above all, to any one who professes to be the representative of the invisible God, and to speak in his name. Hence the Gentiles resorted to their "oracles," and the apostate Jews to their "witchcrafts," and to private oracles, or household gods, called "Teraphim," set up in imitation of the great public oracle, the Urim and Thummim, through which God spoke to them in his holy place. It is to this that Zechariah refers, "The idols" (Teraphim) "have spoken vanity" (10:2). They whom you consult as the depositories of divine wisdom, who pretend to guide you and to utter truth, have spoken vanity; they have cheated you with lies.

Such was Israel's history. They trusted in faithless oracles. They became the dupes of those to whom they had come for guidance in the day of perplexity. They had grieved away the voice that spoke to them by the jewelled breastplate, and they had betaken themselves to

other voices that only misled and befooled them. Their Teraphim spoke vanity.

This has been man's history too, as well as Israel's. He has chosen another counsellor instead of God; it may be the Church, or reason, or public opinion. He has betaken himself to some oracle; he has listened to its utterances; it has cheated him with words of vanity; and its divinations have been as the treacherous staff, which not only breaks under the weight of the traveller, but pierces his hand as he leans on it.

Poor world! such is thy story. Misplaced confidence, disappointment, darkness; the blind following the blind, till one pit receives both the leader and the led!

The world's Teraphim heave not been few; nor has their authority been either weak or transient. They have swayed millions of destinies; not always consciously, on the side either of the speaker or the listener, but still irresistibly. There is "public opinion," that mysterious oracle, whose shrine is nowhere, but the echoes of whose voice is everywhere. No Hindoo ever crouched before his idol with more of submissiveness than do men, calling themselves enlightened, cringe before the shadowy altar of this "unknown god,"—nay, of this Moloch, through whose fires has been made to pass many a tortured conscience that would fain have sided with God and with truth, but dared not, lest it should stand alone. But, besides this idol, or oracle, of public opinion, there is the standard of established custom,—schools of literature and philosophy, or theology; and there is what is called the spirit of the times. Nay, there is sometimes the idol of personal friendships, or of admired authors, or of revered teachers. What havoc do these often make of consciences! How they mislead and pervert! How subtilely do they work in drawing the confidence away from God, and in setting up other standards of truth and holiness than his word and law!

Then let us mark on what points these Teraphim mislead us. They misrepresent the real end and aim of life, assuring us that the glory of the God who made us cannot be that end, inasmuch as that is something quite transcendental, something altogether beyond our reach, or our reason, or our sympathies. They give doubtful, often delusive, answers to such questions as these, "What is truth? what is happiness? what is holiness?" In regard to these things, most certainly, the world's idols have spoken vanity. We can give no credit to their utterances. He who trusts himself to their guidance will go utterly astray. He will miss the very things he is seeking. He will not get hold of truth; he will come short of happiness; and, instead of holiness, he will become satisfied with some artificial standard of moral character which man has set up for himself.

But how is it thus? Why are men thus misled and befooled? They have no confidence in God himself; nor have they learned to say, "Let God be true, and every man a liar." They seek not the Holy Spirit, nor submit themselves to him as their Teacher. They look askance at the Bible, as if there were some danger in making too much of it, or as if it were only one out of the many standards by which we are to measure ourselves and our opinions; nay, as if, in these days, there was so much in the Bible of what is obsolete and unsuited to an age like this, that, were it not for some traditional reverence for that book, and admiration for its beauties, it might in a great measure be set aside. Besides, men do not like the teaching that they get from God and his word. It does not suit their tastes. They do not relish it at all. Hence they choose the prophets of smooth things, the "Teraphim" that utter lies and vanity. "These be thy gods, O Israel." These are the world's oracles. As for God, and his Spirit, and his book, they say, as the king of Israel did of Micaiah, "I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil" (1 Kings 22:8).

But how do these Teraphim speak their vanities? They do not need to do so by uttering gross error. Nay, it is seldom that they try this, though, undoubtedly, error is the real terminus at which they aim. But they mingle the true and the false together; so that the true is

neutralized by the false, and the false is adorned and recommended by the true. The fair fragments of the latter hang like gems around the former, making it comely and attractive. With what seductive persuasiveness do these counsellors of the world, these oracles of the race, win the ear of men! They point to the great men who have pursued paths very far asunder from those who stickle so sternly for adherence to the naked word of God. They bid us listen to the world's philosophers and poets,—to Kant, to Goethe, or Coleridge, or Wordsworth. They ask us to take the experience of these mighty men of mind or song, and to abjure the narrowness and one-sidedness into which we shall otherwise be shrivelled up, if we become men of one book, even though that book should be the Bible,—men of one school, even though that school should be that of the apostle Paul.

And why do these oracles speak thus? They are fond of speaking, and they like to be listened to. It is a great thing to be consulted as an oracle, and to be quoted as an authority. They have no high or sure standard of their own, and hence they can only speak according to their own foolishness. "They know not, neither do they understand; they walk on in darkness." They "grope for the wall as the blind" (Isa. 59:10); and they who set their trust on them must be content to spend their lives in doing the same.

The world has always had its oracles, its Teraphim, its Dii minores et majores. By them it has been guided in the strange career of separation from God, which the apostle calls "the course of this world" (Eph. 2:2). They have helped to mould the world, and to make it what it is; and in its turn it has, in large measure, moulded them and made them what they are. For "the god of this world" is the god of these gods, the oracle of these oracles. "The spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2), is the spirit which speaks through these oracles, and which is, by means of these servants of his, imbuing the world more thoroughly with his own falsehood and unholiness, conforming it more entirely, age after age, to his own image, and withdrawing it more widely from the living Jehovah, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Formerly, it was more as "the ruler of the darkness of this world" that Satan wrought and spoke; now, it is more as an angel of light, into which he has transformed himself (2 Cor. 11:14), that he may ensnare the more, nay, deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. Thus, that which God calls "a wonderful and horrible thing" has come to pass; "the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so" (Jer. 5:30, 31). No wonder that he should ask, "What will ye do in the end thereof?"

It is as the angel of light that Satan is now the world's oracle, or rather, the inspirer of its oracles. He has changed his voice as well as his garb and aspect. He has hidden his grossness, and modified his language to suit the change. He has veiled his sensualism under the guise of poetry, and thrown the mantle of philosophy over the offensive nakedness of atheism. He is still an atheist with the scoffer; a wanton with the lewd; a blasphemer with the profane. For he changes not. But, to disgust as few as possible, and to entangle in his net the many who shrink from all open grossness, he has set up a more refined system of worldliness, of which the watchwords are, "Harmless amusements," "Innocent gaiety," "Intellectual feasts and healthful sports," and such like. Now, there are amusements that are harmless; but are these in the theatre or opera? There is gaiety that is innocent; but is this to be found in the ball-room, and in the giddy whirl of the waltz? There are sports which are healthful; but are these on the turf or in the ring? There are feasts of the intellect; but are these contained only in the light novel or the loose song? Are they to be found in the lecture-rooms of those who cleverly substitute philosophy for faith, reason for revelation, man's wisdom for God's; who prove to us that, though the Bible may contain the thoughts of God, it does not speak his words; who artfully would reason us into the belief that sin is not guilt, but only a disease, a mere moral epidemic; who maintain, with the philosophic Buddhist, that incarnation, not death, is the basis of divine reconciliation; that the tendencies of creaturehood are all upward, not downward; that forgiveness is not a thing needed by any one, seeing condemnation can have no place under the government of a God of love; who affirm

that, though the love of God leads us to conclude the existence of a heaven, yet that his righteousness does not by any means infer the necessity either for a judgment or a hell.

As an angel of light, all his snares and sophistries partake, more or less, of light. He does not appeal directly to our lusts, but to our love of the beautiful and the bright. He does not take his stand upon our natural hatred of God, but upon our thirst for truth and knowledge. By such indirect methods he beguiles us as effectually into error and sin; nay, seduces us as surely into apostasy from God, as when he ensnared our first mother, under the promise of wisdom. "Ye shall be as God," he says still;—independent of all other beings and wills, thinking what you please, enjoying what you desire, and taking in the whole round of indulgences, physical and intellectual, at your will.

As an angel of light he instructs his oracles (as we see in the journalism of the age) to appeal to men's natural humanity, that so he may get them to substitute this for union through the blood of the covenant, and brotherhood in the Son of God. He instructs his oracles to address themselves to our intuitions of virtue and uprightness, that he may by these supplant holiness, and conformity to the image of "the Word made flesh." He instructs them to press home amendment of life and the relinquishment of all offensive evil, that he may utterly efface the idea of being "born again," of the necessity of "conversion," and of the Holy Spirit's indwelling fulness, as the one true source of all that God calls "religion." Thus he "blinds the minds of them which believe not lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them" (2 Cor. 4:4).

Tutored by this angel of light these oracles of earth speak of the "majesty of mind profound;" or of "the splendid might of mind," in all the elation of intellectual pride. They speak loftily of "the world's vast lie," of "earth's falsehoods," of the age's "shams," all the while complacently congratulating themselves that they have found their way out of these unrealities. They think to dig through the husk into

the kernel of all religions, and, out of their uncertain speculations, to construct a new theology. "Attempt the high," they say; "seek out the soul's bright path;"

"Upon the summit of each mountain-thought

Worship thou God."

They spurn the belief that this lapsed creation is wholly evil; exulting in its self-rectifying, self-regenerating power.

"The universal solvent of disease

Still bounds through nature's veins."

It is from Satan as an angel of light, and from his oracles as the reflections of that light, that we have most to dread. The disguises which he is putting on are fatally seductive. The lengths to which he goes, in pretended reverence for religion; the subtle skill which he has put forth in beautifying what is sensual, in refining what is carnal, in purifying what is gross;—the artful way in which he has mixed up the true and the false, the lawful and the unlawful, the certain and the uncertain, the earthly and the heavenly, the human and the divine; the marvellous cunning he has displayed in infusing a sort of religious element into what is meant to be the counteractive of religion; in throwing a religious hue over subjects and scenes, intended by him to withdraw the heart from God; the sophistry by which he has succeeded in substituting the beauties of Pantheism for the blasphemies of Atheism; the dexterity by which he has introduced love to the Creator's works, instead of love to the Creator himself, natural "earnestness" for the zeal of the renewed man, selfreliance for dependence upon the Almighty, sympathy with "nature" for fellowship with God; the successful subtlety with which he has confounded opinion with truth, speculativeness with honest inquiry, credulity with faith, misanthropy with separation from the world;— these things are truly fitted to alarm, inasmuch as they threaten the

obliteration of every sacred landmark, and the final substitution of evil for good, and darkness for light.

The illumination coming from the Sun of righteousness is one thing, and that proceeding from Satan, as an angel of light, is quite another. Satan's object is to confound these two kinds of light, so that men may be misled, as by the gleam of a false beacon, which ensnares even a skilful pilot, and hurries the secure vessel suddenly upon the rock. One of our greatest dangers in these days, arises from this effort of the evil one. If he had set up his light in a wholly opposite quarter, and given it a colour like himself,—the lurid glare of hell,— men would not have been deceived. But he has imitated so nearly the hue of the true light, and placed it so near the heavenly lighthouse, that thousands mistake the beacon, and find themselves unexpectedly a wreck.

Thus it is that the idols have spoken, and do still speak, VANITY. They cheat men with a thousand falsities. They proclaim hopes that end in disappointment. They dupe the heedless, and then mock their miseries. They promise men liberty, while they themselves are the servants of corruption. They promise the bread of truth, and give only the husks of error. They promise joy, and defraud the unwary with the "pleasures of sin." They speak peace, when, instead of peace, there is wrath. They teach men to say, "I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing," when they are "poor, and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked." They tell men "Tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant," when time is on the edge of bankruptcy, and the world's great famine is at hand, when men's famished spirits shall ask for bread in vain; when earth shall plead for something to fill the craving void,—which should have been filled by God himself and his incarnate Son,—and there shall be nothing but the chaff, or the sand, or the air.

Shun the idols that speak vanity. Listen to no voice, however pleasant, save that which is entirely in harmony with God's. Take nothing for truth save what comes from him. Follow no light but that

of him who says, "I am the Light of the world." Abjure every pleasure, every indulgence, of which Christ is not the alpha and the omega, or which would grieve that Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption.

Men may say, Don't be singular, don't pretend to be wiser or better than others. Let us answer, without shrinking, "Let God be true, and every man a liar." Those who have listened to the oracles of earth have always been a multitude; while they who have listened to God have always been few. Let not this discourage us. We have but one voice to listen to, and it speaks articulately, so that we have no excuse either for hesitation or mistake. While others are listening to the idols who speak vanity, let us be intent on knowing what the Lord has spoken. Many may walk on in darkness; but it is written, "The wise shall understand" (Dan. 12:10). Let others betake themselves to "the wizards that peep and mutter; should not a people seek unto their God?"

What though the oracles have spoken,—are they our gods? Are they the representatives of Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? Do they speak according to the law and the testimony?

It is written, "The idols have spoken vanity." They have cheated their worshippers. They are doing so still. They give fair words, but that is all. The issue is disappointment and shame. Are you allowing yourselves thus to be cheated by Satan and his pretended wisdom,— by the world and its deceiving oracles? Are you the dupes of these idols, who, having once lured you into the snare, will only laugh at your calamity?

Be wise in time. For the day of these oracles is fast running to a close. "The idols he will utterly abolish." The vanities which they have spoken will be soon exposed. The hollowness of their promises will, ere long, be detected. Listen not to them, but to the faithful and true Witness,—to the words of the living God; to him who says, "Learn of

me;" to him who utters no vanity, but who has the words of everlasting life,—the truth which fills, and satisfies, and gladdens,— yea, who is himself "the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

SERMON XLVII

THE VAIN WISH

"Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."—NUM. 23:10.

WE must not lose sight of the place where these words were spoken. It was in the land of Moab, and amid the wild desolation of its bare grey hills. It was hard by the land of promise, but not in it; quite within sight of it, yet still with Jordan and the Dead Sea between. It was a land of enemies; a land of false worship; a land whose king hated Israel, and was searching everywhere for curses to launch at him. From this stranger-land, and from these hills, round which the exhalations from the sea of death are gathering, and over which the gloom of the shadow of death is resting, the prayer comes up, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

Nor must we forget the man who spoke them. He is a Mesopotamian seer; a man who, though a worshipper of false gods, knows much of the one true God. He is one who wants to serve two masters, and to make the best of both worlds; and, while serving Moab's Baal, would like to be in favour with Israel's Jehovah. He knows enough of Jehovah to stand in awe of his displeasure, and enough of Jehovah's

people to desire an inheritance among them. But, like Demas, he loves this present world, and he covets the wages of unrighteousness. He would like to lose nothing of the good either of this world or the next. He would like to pitch his tent among the goodly tabernacles of Israel; but then, he must come out from his own nation, and break with Moab; he must forego all Balak's rewards, and give up honour, wealth, reputation, friends; and he cannot make up his mind to this. He would like religion, if it were not so dear. He would fain have a home both in Israel and Moab, and be both Baal's and Jehovah's prophet; but, since he cannot thus unite heaven and earth just now, he starts the thought, But might I enjoy them in succession; Moab just now, Israel afterwards? Might I not serve Baal just now, and Jehovah hereafter? Might I not go on living as heretofore, but make a change at death? This is the thought that is working its way through these words, "Let me die the death of the righteous." He sees that the death of the righteous is the best, whatever his life may be, and from the gloomy depths of a "divided heart" he sends up this bitter cry.

But it is with the wish or prayer itself that we have specially to do. (1.) What does it mean? (2.) What state of feeling does it indicate?

I. What does it mean? He knew that he must die, and that, after death, he must live for ever. He had seen men die; he had seen the men of Aram, and Midian, and Moab die; but it was without hope; and he had seen the mourners go about the streets for them, but they sorrowed as those who had no hope. He would not die their death. He had seen, or at least heard of, other deaths, for he evidently knew much of Israel and Israel's history. He had heard of the deaths of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in other days; and, it may be, he had heard of Aaron's death on Mount Hor, just a short time before; and he knew how the righteous die. "Let me, then, die their death." Dimly, and from afar, he had read the joyful truth, afterwards brought nearer and into fuller light,—"Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord."

But the words mean more than this; for he speaks not merely of death, but of something beyond death,—the last end of the righteous. This is no repetition of the other. There is a parallelism indeed, but it is an ascending one; this second part containing more than the first; and by "last end" the seer meant resurrection,—a truth far more widely known, at least among the nations in any way linked with the patriarchs and patriarchal traditions, than is generally admitted. Balaam's prayer was, "Let me share the death of the righteous; and let me share his resurrection too." How full and comprehensive! There is no vagueness about the object of the wish, whatever there may be about the feelings or actings of him who uttered it. It is a prayer for us to join in; and, though once the prayer of an unbeliever, it may well be the prayer of a believing man.

II. What state of feeling does it indicate? It was not in pretended earnestness nor idle flippancy that these words were uttered. They were sincere. The Syrian prophet felt what he was saying. Compelled by the almighty Spirit to look into Israel's future, and utterglorious things concerning it, he was roused up to desire such a future for himself, to covet such a glory and such an immortality as awaited Israel when the Star of Jacob should arise, bringing morning, and gladness, and an incorruptible inheritance. Sick at heart, and weary of the hollowness of his own heathenism, and all that it could give him, he cries aloud, from the depths of a dissatisfied heart, "Let me die the death of the righteous." Disappointed and sorrowful, he sees the eternal brightness in the distance, with all its attraction, and beauty, and unchangeableness, and in the bitterness of his spirit he cries out, "Would God that I were there!" The feeling soon passes off, but while it lasts it is real. But, with all its reality, it leads to nothing. It leaves him where it found him, amid the mountains of Moab, as earthly, as covetous, as carnal as before. He would fain have the death of the righteous, but he sees nothing desirable in his life. He would fain have Israel's inheritance, but he has no wish to be a worshipper of Israel's God.

Balaam's wish is a very common one, both in its nature and in its fruitlessness. Sometimes it is a mere passing wish, called up by vexation and weariness; at other times it is a deep-breathed prayer; but, in both cases, it is too often inneffective, leading to nothing. Men, young as well as old, get tired of life, sick of the world and its vanities. They see that it has nothing for them after all; and that, even if it had, none of its pleasures can last. When it has done all it can, it still leaves them with a troubled conscience, an aching head, and an empty heart. It makes promises, but cannot keep them; it gives gifts to its lovers, but they perish with the using; it strews roses in the path of its admirers, but this is only to cover its hideousness; it prepares its revellings and banquetings, but these are to intoxicate and poison; it spreads out its thrones and pomps, its costly gems and pearls, its gold and silver, its purple and scarlet, its gaiety and splendour; but these fill up nothing: they bind up no wounds, they knit no broken ties, they staunch no bleeding hearts, they heal no blighted affection; they leave sorrow still sorrow, and pain still pain, and tears still tears, and death still death, and the grave still the scene of farewells, and the dwelling of corruption. Is it wonderful, then, that the vexed spirit should at times fling all such earthly mockeries aside, and groan out the fervent prayer of the Syrian seer, "Let me die the death of the righteous?" Have you not often done so? And have you not added, "O that I had wings like a dove; then should I fly away, and be at rest?"

In too many cases, this is transient and sentimental. It leads to no action, no result. It vanishes like a bright rainbow from a dark cloud, and there is no change. Is it to be so with you? You hope to enter heaven; you wish for a happy death at last; but will wishes save you? Will wishes pluck out death's sting, or conquer the grave, or make you partaker of the resurrection of the just? You can't wish yourself into heaven, or out of hell. Your wishes will do nothing for you, either here or hereafter. If hungry, a wish won't give you bread; or, if thirsty, a wish wont quench your thirst; or, if suffering, a wish wont soothe your pain; or, if dying, a wish won't bring back health into your pale cheek and faded eye.

Yet, a wish may be a good beginning. All fruit begins with buds and blossoms; and though these often come to nought, yet sometimes they end in much. And, therefore, I would reason with you; I would plead with you. That wish may be the beginning of your eternal life. It may lead to much; Oh, let it lead you on! Do not trust to it, as if it made you safe and right; yet do not despise it, as if it were nothing. It may be like the angel that came to Lot to lead him out of Sodom: be not, therefore, forgetful to entertain this stranger; for you may be entertaining an angel unawares. Yield to it, and let it lead you on. Let it lead you out of the world. Let it lead you out of self. Let it lead you to the cross. Let it lead you to the blood of sprinkling, the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness. Let it lead you straight, and without delay, just as you are, to Christ Jesus himself, and to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let it lead you up to the mercyseat, where the blood speaks pardon, and the High Priest waits to bless. Let it do all this now.

Do not suffer that wish, however faint, to die away. It is the touch of the Spirit within you. It is the voice of Christ, saying, "Come unto me." It is the call of the Father, yearning over his prodigal, and beseeching him to be reconciled and blest. But a prayer like this, pointing both at death and resurrection, specially speaks of him who is the resurrection and the life. Go to him with your longings after the death and resurrection of the righteous. Go to him with that weary spirit, he will give it rest; with that empty heart, he will fill it; with that aching head, he will soothe it; with that troubled mind, he will calm it; with that faded eye, he will brighten it. He will give you "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning." Go to him with your sorrow, he will turn it into joy. Go to him with your death, he will transform it into life. Go to him with your sins, he will forgive them frankly. Go to him with your stony heart, he will take it out of you, and give you the heart of flesh. Go to him with your chains, he will snap them asunder. Go to him with your hunger, he will feed you; with your thirst, he will give you drink; with every burden, and care, and weakness, he will remove them all.

Oh, do not rest in a wish, a prayer, however good. That will not save you. Balaam went as far as that, Demas went farther, Judas farther still; yet they were lost. Be not like these. Quarrel with sin at once. Break with the world at once. Linger no longer on the mountains of Moab or the plains of Midian. Enter Israel's land. Pitch your tents in the midst of the beloved nation. Say with Ruth, when she left Moab, "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me."

You know that you must die. Do not dismiss that subject with a wish or a hurried prayer. Do not treat it sentimentally, and sing, "O for the death of those that die like daylight in the west!" Do not trifle away its solemnity, or say with the French infidel (Mirabeau), "Let me die to the sound of delicious music!" Look at death full in the face. Take up Balaam's prayer. It is a good one; only let be carried out. Die in Jesus, and you die well. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." But the dying in Jesus must be begun by the living in Jesus. Only this will do. Live in him, and it will not be hard to die.

SERMON XLVIII

THE MORTAL AND THE IMMORTAL

"Neither can they die any more."—LUKE 20:36.

OURS is a dying world; and immortality has no place upon this earth. That which is deathless is beyond these hills. Mortality is here; immortality is yonder! Mortality is below; immortality is above. "Neither can they die any more," is the prediction of something future, not the announcement of anything either present or past. At every moment one of the sons of Adam passes from this life; and each swing of the pendulum is the death-warrant of some child of time. "Death," "death," is the sound of its dismal vibration. "Death," "death," it says, unceasingly, as it oscillates to and fro. The gate of death stands ever open, as if it had neither locks nor bars. The river of death flows sullenly past our dwellings; and continually we hear the splash and the cry of one, and another, and another, as they are flung into the rushing torrent, and carried down to the sea of eternity.

Earth is full of death-beds. The groan of pain is heard everywhere,— in cottage or castle, in prince's palace or peasant's hut. The tear of parting is seen falling everywhere; rich and poor, good and evil, are called to weep over the departure of beloved kindred, husband or wife, or child, or friend. Who can bind the strong man that he shall not lay his hand upon us or our beloved ones? Who can say to sickness, Thou shalt not touch my frame; or to pain, Thou shalt not come nigh; or to death, Thou shalt not enter here? Who can light up the dimmed eye, or recolour the faded cheek, or reinvigorate the icy hand, or bid the sealed lip open, or the stiffened tongue speak once more the words of warm affection? Who can enter the deathchamber, and speak the "Talitha Cumi" of resurrection? Who can look into the coffin, and say, Young man, arise? Who can go into the tomb, and say, Lazarus, come forth?

The voice of death is heard everywhere. Not from the bier alone, nor the funeral procession, nor the dark vault, nor the heaving churchyard. Death springs up all around. Each season speaks of death. The dropping spring-blossom; the scorched leaf of summer; the ripe sheaf of autumn; the bare black winter mould,—all tell of death. The wild storm, with its thick clouds and hurrying shadows;

the sharp lightning, bent on smiting; the dark torrent, ravaging field and vale; the cold seawave; the ebbing tide; the crumbling rock; the up-torn tree,—all speak of dissolution and corruption. Earth numbers its grave-yards by hundreds of thousands; and the sea covers the dust of uncounted millions, who, coffined and uncoffined, have gone down into its unknown darkness.

Death reigns over earth and sea; city and village are his. Into every house this last enemy has entered, in spite of man's desperate efforts to keep him out. There is no family without some empty seat or crib; no fireside without a blank; no circle out of which some brightness has not departed. There is no garden without some faded rose; no forest without some sere leaf; no tree without some shattered bough; no harp without some broken string.

In Adam all die. He is the head of death, and we its mortal members. There is no exemption from this necessity; there is no discharge in this war. The old man dies; but the young also; the grey and the golden head are laid in the same cold clay. The sinner dies; so also does the saint; the common earth from which they sprang receives them both. The fool dies; so also does the wise. The poor man dies; so also does the rich. "All flesh is grass."

The first Adam died; so also died the second Adam, who is the Lord from heaven. But there is a difference. The first Adam died, and, therefore, we die. The second Adam died, and therefore, we live; for the last Adam was made a quickening spirit; and this is the pledge of final victory over death and the tomb. Thus, the grave is the cradle of life; night is the womb of day; and sunset has become sunrise to our shaded and sorrowful earth. Yet, this is not yet realised. We are still under the reign of death, and this is the hour and the power of darkness. The day of the destruction of death, and the unlocking of sepulchres is not yet. It will come in due time. Meanwhile we have to look on death; for our dwelling is in a world of death,—a land of graves.

If, then, we would get beyond death's circle and shadow, we must look above. Death is here, but life is yonder! Corruption is here, incorruption is yonder. The fading is here, the blooming is yonder. We must take the wings of the morning and fly away to the region of the unsorrowing and the undying; where "that which is sown in weakness shall be raised in power, and death be swallowed up in victory."

It is not that God loves death, or desires to see the extension of its gloomy reign. It was not because he loved it that he let it loose upon the world at first; nor, after so many ages, has he begun to love it now, or to become familiar with it, or to look with indifference upon the ills which attend it,—the sorrow, the weeping, the pain, the desolation, the breaking in pieces of the great temple of humanity, and the undoing of all that divine handiwork which at first he pronounced so very good. No. But sin has entered; and law, unchangeable, remorseless, righteous law, demands the execution of the lawful sentence, "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shaft surely die;" "dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return." Man has only himself to blame for a mortal body and a ruined earth. God hates death, and all that death has done, as truly as he hates sin. He abhors the grave and its corruption. He did not make man to be the prey of worms, nor create earth to be either a sepulchre or a hell. The eye weeps, yet God did not make it to weep, but to sparkle with gladness; and the lips utter sorrow, yet God did not make them to speak aught but praise and joy. So man dies; but God made him not to die, but to live. Earth is a vast grave-yard; yet God made it a paradise of life. His soul loathes the corruption of mortality, with which our world is overspread. He abhors death, and will, ere long, arise and avenge himself upon it for the ravages of six thousand years. No stronger language of abhorrence could be used, no more solemn purpose of divine vengeance could be indicated than the following,—"I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death; O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes" (Hos. 13:14).

We look forward to the day of in corruption; but not so earnestly nor so sincerely as God himself. It is on resurrection that his heart is set; and not an hour longer than is absolutely needful shall that glorious consummation be delayed. The Church desires it; this body groans for it; all creation longs for it; but God still more than all. His object is not to perpetuate, but to terminate the reign of death; through death to destroy him that has the power of death. His purpose is to abolish death, to bind Satan, and to give his saints glorified bodies, and introduce the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. All heaven above is interested in resurrection. It is a thing such as angels have never seen, save in the case of the risen Son of God, the gate of whose rocky sepulchre they descended to open. They long for the resurrection-glory, as truly as they join in the joy over one sinner that repenteth.

Blessed words are these: "Neither can they die any more." It is not simply, Neither shall they die any more, but neither can they die any more. Death, which is now a law, an inevitable necessity, shall then be an impossibility. Blessed impossibility! Neither can they die any more! Oh, the security which these words give! Oh, the comfort, the unutterable gladness which they diffuse through the soul! Neither can they die any more! Death and the grave are cast into the lake of fire. They who are partakers of the first resurrection and of the world to come, are made for ever immortal. They live for ever. They cannot die. They have put on incorruption. They are clothed with the immortality of the Son of God; for as the Head is immortal, so shall the members be. Ah, this is victory over death! This is the triumph of life! It is more than resurrection; for it is resurrection, with the security that death can never again approach them throughout eternity.

All things connected with that new resurrection-state shall be immortal, too. Their inheritance is unfading. Their city, the new Jerusalem, shall never crumble down. Their paradise is as much beyond the power of decay as it is beyond the reach of a second serpent-tempter. Their crowns are all imperishable; and the white

raiment in which they shine shall never need cleansing or renewal. No failing of eyesight; no wrinkles on their brow; no hollowness in their cheeks; no grey hairs upon their heads; no weariness of limbs; nor languor of spirit; nor drying up of their rivers of pleasure. The evil days shall never come nor the years draw nigh when they shall say, We have no pleasure in them. The keepers of the house shall never tremble, nor the strong men bow themselves, nor the grinders cease, nor they who look out of the windows be darkened. No fears shall be in the way, nor shall the almond-tree flourish, nor the grasshopper become a burden; nor shall desire fail, nor shall the mourners go about the streets. The silver cord shall not be loosed, nor the golden bowl be broken, nor the pitcher be broken at the fountain, nor the wheel at the cistern. One generation shall not pass away, nor another come. There shall be a time to be born, but not a time to die; a time to plant, but no time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to heal, but no time to kill; a time to build, but no time to break down; a time to laugh, but no time to weep; a time to dance, but no time to mourn; a time to get, but no time to lose; a time to love, but no time to hate; a time of peace, but no time of war. Never again shall it be said, The days of darkness are coming; for the sun shall no more go down, neither for brightness shall their moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be their everlasting light, and the days of their mourning shall be ended. Then shall the wise man's maxim be out of date for ever, "The day of death is better than the day of birth;" and never more shall his lament over a fading world be heard, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Here they sing,

Ah! I shall soon be dying,

Time swiftly glides away.

But then their song is only of life, for they know that they cannot die any more. Here they say, as one, feeling his mortality, has plaintively sung,

Go and dig my grave to day,

Homeward doth my journey tend;

And I lay my staff away

Here, where all things earthly end;

And I lay my weary head

In the only painless bed.

But there they shall sing, not their death-dirge but their resurrectionsong, with resurrection-voice, in the glorious resurrection-land, "where they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; but where the Lamb shall lead them to the living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

SERMON XLIX

LONGINGS FOR THE LAND

"And I besought the Lord at that time, saying, O Lord God, thou hast begun to shew thy servant thy greatness, and thy mighty hand: for what God is there in heaven or in earth, that can do according to thy works and according to thy might? I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon. But the Lord was wroth with me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and the Lord said unto me, Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter.

Get thee up into the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes: for thou shalt not go over this Jordan. But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him: for he shall go over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which thou shalt see. So we abode in the valley over against Beth-peor."—DEUT. 3:23–29.

THE scene here lies in "the valley over against Beth-peor," at the base of the hills of Moab, that long grey ridge of barren mountains that overshadows the Dead Sea and the plain of Jordan. The land is as inhospitable as the people, and no doubt Israel was glad at the prospect of leaving it behind.

The time is the end of the forty years' sojourn in the desert. The tribes are just about to pass over into Canaan. The land lies before them, with but a few miles of rugged country and the Jordan between. Some weeks, perhaps less, will bring them over. Their desert warfare, and toil, and travel are done. They have, as it were, come up to the gate of Eden, and have nothing to do but to go in and exchange labour for rest, barrenness for fruitfulness, mountains of bare rock, and plains of scorching sand, for fresh fields and vineyards, and rich plains, and hills waving with terraces of olive to the summit.

This nearness to the long-looked-for land stirs up the spirit of Moses, and he resolves to make one effort more to be allowed to enter. Entrance into it had been his hope from the day he left Egypt. The land flowing with milk and honey had been constantly before his eyes. And though God had intimated to him that, on account of his speaking unadvisedly with his lips at Meribah Kadesh, he was not to enter the land; yet now, when placed within sight of it, the longing to enter it rises up within him in all its force, and he resolves to attempt, once again, to obtain entrance, if that, perchance, he may be permitted to set foot in it before he die.

Let us note, then, the following points in this narrative:—

I. Moses's desire to enter.—(1.) It was strong and deep; the strongest and deepest desire of his soul in regard to anything earthly. Is our longing for the heavenly Canaan as vehement as his for the earthly? (2.) It was a holy desire. There was nothing carnal in it; nothing of the flesh or of self. It was the desire of a holy man for a share in the fulfilment of the divine promise. (3.) It was a patriotic desire. Canaan was his true fatherland, though he had never dwelt in it. It was the home of his fathers, and the inheritance of his children, the land in which Israel's hopes were wrapped up. As a patriot, Moses could not but long to enter in. (4.) It was a natural desire. Though brought up in ease and luxury, for now eighty years he had been a dweller in tents in the wilderness, a man without a home. How natural that he should be weary of the desert, and long for a resting-place! (5.) It was a desire connected with the welfare of his nation. Israel was to be blest in that land of blessing, and he desired to see his nation settled in the Lord's land. (6.) It was a desire connected with the glory of God. He knew that God was about to choose a place wherein to set his name, and to shew his glory. He had once before pleaded, "Shew me thy glory;" and what could be more desirable in his eyes than that he should see the manifestation of this glory, and witness the mighty power of God in the land which he knew was to be the centre and stage of all these? Moses's desire, then, seems a reasonable, proper, and true-hearted desire. We greatly sympathise with the old man of six score in the feelings here expressed; we would kneel down beside him, and plead with God that he would not deny the request of his aged servant. It is but a small request; and how blessed for the old man, like Simeon, to get the fulfilment of his lifetime's longings before he die! It was not, indeed, for salvation he was pleading: all that was settled long ago between him and his God; but as the saved man, as a son and heir, he was asking for a nearer sight of this part of his inheritance,—asking to set his mortal foot upon a land which, in resurrection, he knew he would, in days to come, tread with immortal foot, and gaze upon with immortal eye. He was now within sight both of the earthly and the heavenly Canaan; the upper and the

nether glory were both before his eyes; he longed to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better; but still, with all the heavenly full in view, and ready to be entered on, he still desired the vision of the earthly; he still pleaded, "I pray thee, let me go over and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon."

There was nothing wrong, or carnal, or low in this desire to look upon the earthly. That which is earthly is not necessarily carnal, and that which is material may be as spiritual as that which is immaterial. There may be a carnal view of things heavenly, as truly as there is a spiritual view of things earthly. The former is that which unbelief always takes, the latter is that which faith realises. It is not spirituality to abuse the body, to despise matter, to soar above the clouds. True spirituality is that which accepts material things as those which God created and pronounced good; which loves to visit them, and gaze on them in faith, as manifestations of the glory of the invisible God; as helps to the understanding of the great mystery of godliness, "God manifest in the flesh."

II. His arguments (ver. 24).—The first part of his argument is, "Thou hast shewed me the beginning, wilt not thou shew me the end?" It is natural, even in man's works, when we have seen the beginning, to desire to see the end; and to expect that he who has shewn us the one, will shew us the other. Moses feels as if he would be tantalized, almost mocked, by not seeing the end. He argues that God's willingness to shew him the beginning, is a pledge of his willingness to shew him all. We may all use this argument. Thou, who hast forgiven me past sin, wilt thou not forgive all present and all future sin? "Being confident of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Christ" (Phil. 1:6). The second part of his argument is, that, to stop here, would leave so much undiscovered of his greatness and mighty hand, that, for the sake of the glory to be unfolded, and the power to be revealed, he might expect to be allowed to enter. So great is the undiscovered glory of God, and so desirous is God to reveal it to us, that we may use this argument with him respecting anything we desire. The third

argument looks at the very little already seen,—only a glimpse. Moses pleads this little, and, because of it, asks to enter Canaan. He had seen much of God's power, yet he speaks as if it were little; not as if undervaluing the past, but still feeling as if it were comparatively nothing. So, all that we have tasted hitherto is small. It is in the ages to come that he is to shew the exceeding riches of his grace; and hence we may call the past a little thing, and use it as an argument with God. We might, perhaps, shrink from this, were it not that we call to mind his unspeakable gift; and, measuring other gifts with this, we may speak of them as small. We may argue, the blessings we have received are large, when we consider ourselves and our demerit; but, when measured with that gift which has purchased everything for us, and which is the pledge of all, they are as nothing. Let not the greatness of the blessings sought discourage us; rather let us deal with them as Moses did, and, pointing to their greatness, make that greatness our plea. It is a light thing with God to give us anything or everything. Let us ask, and let us expect the best gifts,—knowing that he will do for us exceeding abundantly, above all we ask or think.

III. God's answer.—It is not what we should have expected. It falls heavily on us, and it must have fallen still more heavily on the old man's ear. It sounds stern to us. Yet it is the answer of wisdom and love. Three things are recorded here. (1.) The anger. God was angry at Moses, or rather, he had been so; and the reasons for it were as strong now as at the first. Israel had provoked Moses, and Moses had provoked God. Israel's conduct had roused Moses to speak and act unadvisedly, so that he dishonoured God before all Israel. This public act of sin cannot be passed over, even in Moses; for, if God passed over offences in Moses when he was visiting them on the people, what would be said? This great dishonour done to God by Moses, though at the close of a long life of consistent service, must be publicly condemned. This is the anger spoken of. Moses is not to be cut off with the rebels, nor to have a grave in the wilderness; but some notice must be taken of his sin. God will by no means clear the guilty. (2.) The refusal. The anger leads to refusal of the petition. Often had the petition been presented and refused; now it is

presented and refused for the last time. "He would not hear me!" Strange words these respecting God and his treatment of the prayer of a saint,—"He would not hear me!" Oh, with what feelings of abasement must Moses have listened to this last refusal! Such a refusal from One who had hitherto denied him nothing, from One who had so freely forgiven all his iniquities! How solemnly would he feel, in that hour, the necessity of such a testimony against the sins of his saints! How bitterly did that refusal call his sin to remembrance! (3.) The prohibition. "Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter." This is the final closing of the whole question, the sealing of Moses's lips. He had, doubtless, often spoken to God on the subject; but now he is forbidden even to speak of it again. There is something severe in this check; yet there is something very parental. It shews the intimate terms on which God was pleased to be with Moses; so that, when His child grew too importunate. He lays his hand upon his lips, with, Hush, speak no more on that subject. God is not a man that he should lie. His purpose must stand. But Oh, what an idea of the efficacy of prayer must Moses have had, when he thought by it to change the purpose of God! This was more than moving mountains. And how much God must delight in importunity, when he lets it go so far, and only checks it at the last with a rebuke so gracious and gentle!

IV. God's condescending grace.—Entrance is denied, but a full vision of the land is granted (ver. 27). He strains his purpose (if one may speak so) as far as possible, without breaking it. The actual request is denied, but something as like it, and as near to it, as might be, is accorded. He takes him to the top of Pisgah, one of the highest of the mountains of Moab, and from it he shews him the whole land. Looking westward, he sees Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, and Bethel, with the terraced hills of Benjamin and Ephraim stretching away in the grey distance, to the great sea. Northward, he sees the wooded vale of Jordan, with its forests of palms and pomegranates,—the fruitful heights of Galilee and Gilead, up to the snowy peaks of Lebanon, and "that goodly mountain," Hermon. Southward, he sees the wooded hills of Judah, with the vineyards of Eshcol, and the olive

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